Info session on the Call ad hoc youth initiatives Living and building democracy 2026 (2026.C3.C)-20260723_150317-Transcript of the meeting
23 juillet 2026, 01:03PM
1h 31m 4s
HECO Samir a commencé la transcription
HECO Samir 0:04
My name is Samir Hećo and I'm a project officer at the European Youth Foundation. And we have three other colleagues from the foundation who are here today with us. And if they would like to present themselves, so maybe we can start with Olga.
BALTAG Olga 0:23
Hello, my name is Olga. I'm a project officer at the European Youth Foundation. And I pass on the floor to Marilyn.
HORST Marilyn 0:42
Hello, my name is Marilyn Horst and I'm a financial officer at EYF. Welcome to this session and I pass the floor to Gordana.
BERJAN Gordana 0:51
My name is Gordana Berjan and I'm the Head of the European Youth Foundation and I will say also a few welcoming words. So really happy to see that we are so many people. Welcome all of you, though I can't see all of your faces, but it's really nice that we have so many people joining. We are here today very much to inform you about this call for proposals for ad hoc youth initiatives “living and building democracy”. We want to inform you what that contains and we will go through it more in detail now in this 1h30 we have ahead of us. And also to give you
the opportunity to ask questions, because even if everything is sort of clear in the documents, you might have questions and you have context that you work within that you would like to see if this could work for you.
This call is one of the first calls we have this year for local and national youth organisations. It is for initiatives at local level. This is a way for the European Youth Foundation to contribute to a bigger process of the Council of Europe that has initiated a new democratic pact. So we hope that this call can help building this new democratic pact across the member states of the Council of Europe, across the whole continent.
As you can see, the complete documentation for this call is on the website and we are working a little bit offline. And the reason for that, and some of you might know this already, the foundation has gone through a reform where we have updated our ways of working. We have updated the grant types. Some of you might know us in the past through pilot activities. This is slightly similar to the pilots, but they should address more emerging needs of young people.
We wanted to launch this call earlier this year, but because we are in this reform process where we are also building a new grant management system, it's an online system where you can apply. We had a very, very old one before. We, therefore, wanted to give you the opportunity to apply in this new system. And this new system will be ready by the end of this month, beginning of next month. And to apply to the foundation, as some of you know, who are registered with the foundation, you have to first register and you have to be in this system in order to access the call. So we ask for your patience and we ask for your understanding because we are in this transition and hopefully everything will go well.
To apply to this call, you need to apply in this new online system. So just to also tell you that when we did this big reform, we also updated our operational regulations so that the foundation is more adaptive and related to the realities of today. It also has improved all the different parameters for grant giving. So if you have not seen them before and you have not looked at it, it's good to have a look because we are trying to be more explicit and more agile in the sense of responding to youth organisations and young people's needs.
We also have a new grant guide that then translates a little bit these sometimes legalistic language of the operational regulations for you to better understand how you can apply and how we are going to work. And I would recommend you to look at the grant guide when you are also considering to apply.
We also have something which is new. We have this digital desk once a week. Colleagues are available online if you want to pop by and just ask any question that comes to your mind. It can be related to your application or anything else that considers the European Youth Foundation and the grant screening.
So we are now in a year of change, and we think that this reform work that we are doing, it will finish by the end of the year. So by then, everything should be in place. So with this, I just want to warmly welcome you once again, and we hope that this session will be interesting and that it can result in
interesting proposals. So I hand over to you, Samir, who will guide us through this first session of what this call is about.
HECO Samir 6:21
Thank you very much, Gordana. And I will start sharing the presentation as just mentioned about the call.
I will start first what exactly the Council of Europe is, although I'm sure you all know about us. So the Council of Europe is the oldest intergovernmental organisation in Europe, established in 1949 and based in Strasbourg, France, with the mission to promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law across Europe and beyond. As Gordana mentioned it already, the call we are discussing today is one of the numerous ways to contribute to the process of the New Democratic Pact for Europe, which is a collective and inclusive process and which aims at building a Europe where citizens feel heard, empowered and protected and where democracy works better and includes everyone.
Now about the foundation and I will go through the article 1 of the statute of the European Youth Foundation which is about the European Youth Foundation mission. The aim of the foundation is to promote youth cooperation in Europe by providing financial support to such European youth activities that serve the promotion of peace, understanding and cooperation.
between the people of Europe and of the world in a spirit of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
So, indeed, the European Youth Foundation provides partnership and financial support for youth organisations from the 46 member states of the Council of Europe for their operations, but also for and mainly for youth-led projects. And this is very important, this youth-led information
projects are led by the young people, and international cooperation activities for youth organisations, for young people to promote democracy, human rights and multiply our values. The budget that we have at the foundation for the grants is about 4 million EUR per year.
And...
So now, how can organisations access the EYF funding? Gordana already mentioned that each organisation that seeks funding from the foundation needs to be registered in our system. As mentioned by Gordana, we are now having
We are now building a new online system, which shall be online beginning of August.
and all current organisations that are registered already in the old system will be migrated and will have access in the new system once the system is online. The new organisations will need to register
On our platform, in the web page on the call for proposals, you can see the Word document on for the new organisation that that would like to register within our system. There is a word form where you can see what information is asked and my colleague Olga, she already shared the link to the guide in the chat where you can see what exactly are the criteria for organisations to be registered in our system.
This form, you can, as the online system is still not online, you can prepare all the work, of course, in Word. And once we launch it, hopefully it will be online beginning on August, you can start the work of registration.
And once the we at the foundation have approved the registration of your organisation, you can see the calls that we launch over the years.
This is the way where you can apply for the calls with a narrative and financial part.
Once the proposals are finished, the secretariat of the foundation is assessing all the eligible projects that have been received and based on the criteria specific to each call. And you can see the criteria of this particular call on our website and in the document that is presented there. The decision on awarding the grants to different projects is made by the Programming Committee on Youth, which is a co-managed
committee involving 8 representatives of member states and eight representatives of youth organisations.
So to sum up at the foundation, we are supporting educational, cultural, social projects by, with and for young people that contribute to youth sector priorities that you can also find on our website and using youth sector approaches, which in addition contain a European dimension, international solidarity aspect, and support peace and cooperation. And of course, youth participation is a key element in all our projects, meaning that young people are the ones leading and implementing the projects we are supporting with our grants.
So now, what exactly this call is about and what are the main aims and objectives of the call for ad hoc youth initiatives living and building democracy?
The main aim is to support youth initiatives that empower young people to learn about and actively engage in democracy and human rights. And there are three specific objectives to this call, which are:
- to create space for young people to learn more about democracy and the role of human rights therein, in relation to specific challenges to democracies in the current European context.
- Second specific objective is to allow young people to develop their attitudes, views and specifically their critical thinking for building a democratic culture, including when using the digital space.
- and equip young people with citizenship skills and ways to take part in democratic processes and human rights promotion.
In a way, the initiatives have to give responsive to specific challenges young people face in engaging with democratic processes, such as misinformation, manipulation, disinformation, etc.
The applicants, the organisation that can apply, that are eligible to apply to this particular call are the local youth organisations or national youth organisations as considered by the European Youth Foundation and as indicated in the guide to the grants of the EYF on the page 17 to 19.
What are now the main parameters of this call?
Initiatives that can be supported through this call are awareness raising and educational initiatives grounded in human rights education and education for democratic citizenship, with a strong focus on strengthening critical thinking of young people, and fostering their participation in democratic processes and civic life within a European/global context of erosion of democracy.
The initiatives must have an educational dimension as well as a youth engagement dimension. In other words, initiatives have to bring this human rights education and education for democratic citizenship dimension, where participants learn about human rights, where they learn how they can be involved in democracy, for example.
And in addition, and regarding this youth engagement dimension, initiatives must support and empower young people to engage actively in democratic processes, etc.
Another crucial element of this call is the need for each project to have an impact on young people and their local communities.
Regarding the participants of the projects, we are of course looking for young people, as I said at the very beginning, that all projects should be youth-led projects. And there is an important parameter which says that at least 75% of participants have to be aged under 30, residing in at least one of Council of Europe member state and who have had limited or no prior opportunities to engage in similar actions.
The project has to start this year at the latest by 31st December and the earliest date to start the project is 20 November of this year. The projects have a duration of six months, which means that the project can only last up to 30 June of 2027, with the reporting period saying that once the project finishes, there is a two-month limit for reporting on the projects, which means that the latest reporting time for this call will be 30 August 2027.
It is of course important to use different resources when you prepare your projects and you can see in different links. All those links are also present in the call. You can see different materials that can be used, such as the Compass or other resources that are present on our website. We really advise you to take your time to consult some of the documents and to use them.
The budget foreseen is a maximum of 8,000 euro per project and we intend to finance 25 projects within this call.
Which activities are not eligible and considered for this call? I would advise you to really look at the call because there is an extensive list of activities that are not considered eligible.
And regarding the excluded applicants, of course, there are always some exclusion criteria which are contained in a self-declaration in the application. In principle, the eligible organisations that are registered on our platform will not be excluded from the call unless they don't sign this self-declaration, so it is really important not to forget to sign the self-declaration.
Now, if you agree, we can have a quick stop here, take some questions. Later, I will present also the narrative form that is now in Word, where you can find what is needed to apply for the call. Marilyn will then present the budget and what is needed to fill in for the budget in order to apply for the call. We will take, of course after each presentation, some questions. You can always ask questions, in the chat, so please don't hesitate.
If you have some questions you can switch on the camera, if you want, of course, and maybe just present yourself, where do you come from?
Representative of HDRI 21:47
Yeah, thank you so much for the presentation. My question is that the guide of the call it says that for this specific project, we need to have a partner like locally that we can do together. So I want to know like if the partner is not still registered, they can still be partner within the project or they need also to be registered within the portal.
Or if so, also you mentioned that the project need to be local organisation or national organisation. What about if the partner is, for example, an independent policy think tank?
HECO Samir 22:46
Thank you for your question. The main applicant needs to be a local or national organisation. The partners can be other organisations and the leading grantee is the organisation that we are having the grant with. So this organisation needs to be local or national organisation.
And the other organisation does not need to be registered with us because we are giving the grant to the applicant only.
Representative of HDRI 23:29
Yeah, and sorry, I want to also ask, do we need also to include, for example, a kind of like a letter of support or partnership agreement that required for the application stage or only before grant agreement signature if we select?
HECO Samir 23:48
There is no need for us to see this letter. What is important is that you have the partnership and that your partner really has a valid input for you and that the partner supports and really contributes to the overall project that you are intending to implement.
So, for us, there is no need for such agreement, unless you give some funds to them to organize local activities. in this case we need to have some documents but my colleague Marilyn will explain information about the financial issues, what is needed. So we don't need this letter of support.
Representative of HDRI 24:41
Thank you.
Participant 1 24:46
Yes, can you hear me? Thank you very much. I have one or two question. The first one is about my country. We are not member of European Union. And as in in Erasmus, do we have rights to participate without leading organisation?
HECO Samir 25:34
So first of all, thank you for your question. You country is actually a member state of the Council of Europe so you have the right to apply.
Participant 1 25:44
Thank you very much. And about the question about project, how many mobility does it include in duration six months? For example, do we have right to write project about the biggest conference in my country, biggest international conference?
HECO Samir 26:29
As said in the call, the call really must have impact on young people and on local communities. So if you consider international mobility, it really has to make sense to your project and what you really intend to reach with, so the call as mentioned at the beginning, the amount is pretty low amount, which is 8,000 EUR. So bringing a lot of people from other countries, I don't know, would it make sense for you to spend all the money on this mobility?
Participant 1 27:13
Okay.
But if this mobility will be only for children, for example, at least 1000 children and students from different regions of my country, if we will organize very special conference. Can we make the project because we are newcomer in your system and we don't know what kind of projects to organize. Does it include the types of projects? Here, in this call.
HECO Samir 27:58
This is the call about, yes, about activities that happen on a national level, local level. If you intend to bring young people from other parts of your country to one place, of course this is possible, this is possible, but it has to be consistent with your project.
Participant 1 28:14
Yes.
HECO Samir 28:20
and the budgetary issue, how you split your budget into different types. You will have the explanation about the budget, how to do the budget later on by my colleague, and this is up to you how you want to use the money
.
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Participant 1 28:39
Yes, I know that maximum is the 8,000 euro, I know this, but if you will make the biggest conference duration this sum, does it possible to make project in this call?
BERJAN Gordana 28:57
Maybe, Samir, I can step in a little bit. First of all, maybe because you are new to the foundation, to be able to access any kind of fund of the European Youth Foundation, and we are Council of Europe, so your country is indeed a member state. We are 46 countries. And your government is also contributing to the European Youth Foundation so that we can support these kind of activities. But before you can discuss any project, you first of all must be accepted by the European Youth Foundation as a youth organisation in the online system.
If you qualify as a local or national youth organisation, then you have access to calls that the foundation gives. So before we discuss any kind of project, first of all, you have to be accepted according to our rules and you can read in our guide what the rules are and the operational regulations.
Participant 1 30:00
Okay.
BERJAN Gordana 30:00
what constitutes a youth organisation, local or national, which this call is for, because we cannot discuss specific projects right now because we are almost 40 people, but we can also help you to understand that better separately. But first of all, you must be an accepted youth organisation by the European Youth Foundation. This is the first step before you can do any project. I hope it clarifies.
Participant 1 30:09
Okay.
I know. And the last question: do we have to have another partner organisation?
BERJAN Gordana 30:34
No, no, you can do it yourself. You don't have to have partner organisations. The organisation that carries the project can do it fully. And it all depends on what you want to do. So it's hypothetical to discuss a big conference on mobility because it all depends on the criteria that we put out. And then you try to explain to us what you want to do.
Participant 1 30:37
Okay.
Yes, and how many times do you have calls during the year?
BERJAN Gordana 31:00
Only now. Only now. This is the only opportunity in 2026 and next year we will see. So this is the only opportunity for local or national projects. But you can always find information on our website because we put all the calls on the website, any call we have. Some are for international organisations, some are for local and national. So it all depends what the call is about. Right now, this is the only call we have.
Participant 1 31:26
Okay.
Thank you very much.
BERJAN Gordana 31:29
And is it okay? then maybe we move on with more questions.
Participant 2 31:43
Thank you very much for the presentation. First question that rise up, kind of stick with what the representative of HDRI said about the partners. If it is like from the municipality, the youth council doesn't matter like if it is like as our partner, right? Or it should be a registered partner as it is.
HECO Samir 31:52
The partners do not need to be registered in our online system. It's only the applicant who has to be registered in our platform.
Participant 2 32:15
Okay.
Okay, good to know.
Okay, and the second question that I have is about the impact about the young people. Do you have a, do we need some specific KPIs or is up to us as applicants how we will mention the KPIs and we will track on them?
HECO Samir 32:35
It is the purpose of a project for you to describe what you want to achieve and how the impact will be, how your project will impact young people and the local communities.
Participant 2 32:40
Okay.
Good to know. And the last one is like, do you have the presentation somewhere upload on the platform so we can check it later or you will send it to us?
HECO Samir 32:55
We will have it afterwards, yes, and there will be another presentation in August, if I remember well, on the 11th of August, where you can still again connect and have some more questions.
Participant 2 32:58
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
HECO Samir 33:13
Next question please.
Representative of Muğla Youth Council 33:19
Yes, can you hear me well?
First of all, hello everyone. Thank you for this informative session. And sorry for, I'm joining without a camera, sorry for this. I have two questions. First of all, we are not a member to European Youth Foundation, but we want to be a member.
Is it okay for applying and for applying process? And also, I have another question. Can we apply just as a youth council?
Can actually, sorry, can municipal youth councils apply to this call directly as applicant organisations without any partners, without any NGO, just as a youth council? If not, If we need to partner with a registered youth NGO, what should the application structure look like? Thank you.
HECO Samir 34:52
Thank you very much for your questions. As said before, before applying to the grants, your organisation needs to be registered within the European Youth Foundation. I would advise you to check the guide where you can see the criteria and
and what are the criteria for an organisation to be considered as a youth-led organisation and to be registered within our system. Regarding the partners, as said at the beginning, there is no need to have partners within this project. It can only be done with only the applicant organisation.
Representative of Muğla Youth Council 35:30
Okay.
BALTAG Olga 35:41
If I may, there is this aspect of municipal that in some countries, the fact that you are called the Municipal Youth Council sometimes you are a separate entity from the public administration. So for example, you may be registered as a non-governmental organisation and you are called Municipal Youth Council. But because we work across the 46 member states, in different countries, there's different legislation. So if, for example, your youth council is not registered as a non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation, then you are not eligible for our grants. We really work only with youth-led youth organisations that are non-governmental, not-for-profit. So maybe another partner that is a non-governmental organisation among your youth council can be the applicant and the lead partner for your project idea. I don't know what the situation in Turkey is, but if, for example, this is your situation because you are not a separate entity from the local government, then unfortunately, you would not be eligible for our grants. But someone else could apply with this idea, and then you can be involved in it, contribute to it, etc.
HECO Samir 37:25
Thank you very much, Olga.
Participant 3 37:47
I'm a founder of a SDG Goal Association. It's youth-led, if I would say. And we are less than six months old. I was wondering if young people aged between 15 to 30 have formal project governance roles, because I, that's how I understood from the form that I was filling when I was trying to do a registration, fill in a registration form. So I was wondering what are the requirements around an association or an NGO in terms of the governance roles, does it mean that we have to have 15 to 30 year olds or just having membership is enough? If the organisation has members between that age, do I still qualify?.
BALTAG Olga 39:01
So thank you for this question. This is turning into another discussion than what it's supposed to be because you will find the answer in the guide. Really have a look at it. It's just a two-page section. For us to be considered a youth organisation, young people need to be part of the board and of the governing of the organisation. So you have to have 15 to 30 year olds that are either the president, treasurer, secretary, director. So the young people are the ones governing the organisation, are part of the organisation, are the ones initiating the activities, and are the ones benefiting from it. All of these together make a youth organisation. If you don't have all of them together, then we would need to enter into a dialogue discussion with your organisation to understand how you function. So for example, you may, for example, not have all the governing board of young people, which is...
Participant 3 39:51
Mhm.
Yeah.
What if I have schools as the membership is not individual membership as board members, but the membership is more as a school unit between those ages. They join memberships in terms of a whole school different schools in that age group. So they are members of my association.
BALTAG Olga 40:30
Yes, but who exactly is the one leading the activities? Because it's not a school deciding. For example, if you have two, three, four people that are the ones taking responsibility, signing, approving documents, et cetera, if these people are young, then OK. If not, then no.
Participant 3 40:51
Yeah. Okay. Okay, now I understand.
But it can still have further conversations on this.
Okay.
HECO Samir 41:09
Thank you very much. I see there was one question in the chat from participant about the access to the new platform. So there is no exact date. We hope the online platform will be available as from beginning of August.
And to reply to one question of Participant 3, if the registration validation will be realistic before 1st September. This is why we have put on our website the word forms in order for you to already prepare the documents for the registration, but also the documents to prepare your project. And then once the online platform is on, you can only copy paste from the Word document because this is what will be requested in the online system.
Participant 3 42:10
Mm.
Yeah, but how in terms of in terms of the not registration, but membership or to.
HECO Samir 42:23
Maybe the best is that you check this model form which is on our website and maybe start preparing the documentation that are needed. And then once the platform is on, you can do it.
And as Gordana informed, there are specific Digital open desk every Wednesday, 14h-16h CET for all those kinds of questions, maybe regarding registrations. If you have, I would advise you to connect at this time slots, because this meeting is more about the call itself. So all questions regarding the registration, we can take them on every Wednesday when we have the open desk.
Participant 3 43:19
Okay, thank you.
HECO Samir 43:34
Maybe very quick, two questions from Participant 4 and the representative of United Societies of Balkans.
Participant 4 43:53
Hello, thank you very much for explanations. We are officially registered in the European Youth Foundation portal as a local association. And I just had three questions, but one of my questions was answered by you. So there remains 2 other questions that need clarification. The first question is regarding a public institution like our university. Can it be also involved as our partner? For example, if the university agrees to provide us with amphitheatres or lecture halls?
HECO Samir 44:41
Yes, the answer is yes.
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Participant 4
And is there a maximum number of partner organisations that may participate as co-applicants? Because we are the lead applicant.
HECO Samir 44:41
There is, yeah, there is one applicant. You are the lead applicant that you will be receiving the grant if, of course, your project is considered.
So, as said in the call, there is no need for partners, but if you have partners, it is additional information that contributes to the to your project, so yes.
Participant 4 45:05
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
HECO Samir 45:16
And maybe just final question from the representative of United Society of Balkans,
United Societies of Balkans GR 45:24
Yes, thank you. It will be very short. I wanted to ask a question on the content of the project. Can it be focused on a specific disadvantaged or underrepresented group?
or does it need to provide the broader aspect of the local community?
HECO Samir 45:52
There are three different objectives and of course, the project around this topic of course can be a valid project.
Yes, the answer is yes.
United Societies of Balkans GR 46:12
Thank you very much. Thank you.
HECO Samir 46:14
You're welcome.
Okay, so now if we can move to the template.
So, as said earlier, this is a Word template, and it is exactly the same information that will be requested in the online tool. So, again, we would really like to advise you to start already preparing your project, awaiting the online platform to be live. So first, what you need is the information about the contact person with all the details, and of course, the title of your initiative.
Then where the project will be implemented, in which country, venue, when we mention venue, it's more about, at this time, it's about the city or the village where it takes place. Of course, we cannot maybe immediately indicate the meeting rooms where it will happen.
Then the information about the start and the end date of the project. And as you remember from the presentation, the earliest date to start the project can be 20 November. And the latest start date of the project is 31st December of this year, and the latest end day of the project is 30 June 2027, having in mind that the project duration is 6 months maximum.
Of course, we need to know what the project is about. So here you will need to indicate the proposal overview with the limit of 3600 characters. So we really would like you to be clear, concise, but also to explain us what the project is about. And there are some guiding questions that you can follow. What is your project, what is it exactly about? Why is your organisation proposing this initiative, for example?
and how this initiative will contribute to the priority of the Council of Europe youth sector and of course the specific goals of this proposal.
Then we are speaking about what for, so what do you want to achieve with this project? And here the information we would like to have is the aim of the project and the main objectives. And of course, if relevant, we would be really grateful for you to explain us what outputs this initiative will have. An output can be, for example, a publication, a podcast, a website. So it is not limited, but what is really important is to have a concise and clear information.
The next box is about how you will implement your project. So main activities, we would like you here to present your main activities of the project from the beginning to the closing of the project. Some projects can be in different phases, like preparatory meetings, one meeting, two meetings, etc. So it is really up to you to present here what will happen and what is important that for each activity you indicate also in briefly what happens, what format does it have, who will be involved, and we would like to receive also an outline of the programme of different events.
Also, how you do it, which methods you will use during your project.
Here, it's important to indicate how you intend to include youth, young people. And there is need to mention how the project should be inclusive, support gender equality and other human rights and value-based considerations.
With whom? This is really important for us to see and that you are already having in mind the team who will be working in this project. And what is really important is the experiences of each team member that brings in organising and implementing this initiative. Please do explain us who will be responsible for what and of course who will be also responsible for managing the financial part of the grant.
Here we have the box on the partners. Today we have had a lot of questions about the partners and said at the beginning if you do not envisage to have partners, it is of course okay, because there is no need to have a partner. But if you have a partner that really brings something to the project, this is the place where you can inform us about and what they will bring to the initiatives.
The box on participants, it's really important for us to see the number of participants that you intend to have during the whole project. And as mentioned earlier, this ratio of age of participants, this is also very important for us.
And finally, we would like to know how, what are the profiles of different participants and how, based on which criteria you will select the participants.
So now I will stop the presentation of the form and I'm a bit fast because we still have half an hour and we have the presentation on the financial
part of the call. So I will take several questions if there are any on the form, please.
Participant 5 53:18
Hi, maybe you explained it and I didn't understand, but when we say partners, do we also include team members, facilitators or other people who are involved or just young people participating?
HECO Samir 53:30
For the team members, you have to indicate them in the team part, in the part of the team box. The experts as well, as we consider them as a team. The partners are only other organisations that can help you, but the team is in the team box, team members, experts included…
Participant 5 53:54
Yeah.
Sorry, I meant participant. If I said partner, I'm sorry about it.
HECO Samir 54:03
Participant is separate. They are participants of the activities. They are the main target of your activities.
Yasin Bulat 54:12
Yes, I think there is a misunderstanding or I'm not understanding, but there was a number of participants in the form. I'm asking if that includes the team or other experts that are okay.
HECO Samir 54:22
No, no, no, no, no, it does not include the team.
Yasin Bulat 54:31
Okay.
HECO Samir 54:32
Okay.
representative of HDRI, and maybe then we can move to the financial part of the presentation.
Representative of HDRI 54:38
Yeah, thank you so much. I want to know, like, besides the application form in the new portal, when it's going to be live at the beginning of August, do and also add, like, for example, additional supporting documents that could be like additional things that could support the application. Because the application itself, it has like a lot of like a small space.
HECO Samir 55:03
I have my colleague, Olga, who would like to reply, yes.
BALTAG Olga 55:42
There will be a section to add additional documents, but we will not consider them.
Everything that is requested in the questions of this narrative form is the only thing that you need to provide.
Representative of HDRI 55:58
Okay.
BALTAG Olga 55:59
Because we are trying to provide an equal, how to say, equal access to everybody. So we don't want to look, you could, we will have a look at them, but we will base the merit and the award of the criteria of your project, only on what you wrote in the content of the application.
And also pay attention to the limit, the text limit, because for us, it's very important that the shorter you are, the clearer you are, the better it is.
BERJAN Gordana 56:41
If I may jump in, we did this in the beginning. I said we did this big reform and we actually want to make it simpler for everybody. We don't want to overcomplicate. We don't want people to spend days and days on an application. If you have a good idea, try to be concise and short what you want to do.
You don't have to collect a lot of documents in order to prove yourself somehow. If you are accepted and registered with the foundation, we have a starting point. And then we did all these changes to make it more simple for you because we listened to the youth organisations and before it was a little bit too much bureaucracy.
So this is why we are doing this. So please help us not to be bureaucratic because we are bureaucratic enough as a Council of Europe. We really want to make it to the point. So this is why we also limit information. So it's also manageable for young people who wants to do projects. Thank you for letting me jump in.
HECO Samir 57:48
Thank you very much, Olga and Gordana, for your support. So now I would like to give the word to Marilyn to present us the budget part of the application.
HORST Marilyn 58:04
Thank you, Samir. I will share my screen with the presentation. I will try to be short, clear and concise as we also ask from you.
So when you apply, you also have to submit a budget and if the project is granted, when it's over, you have to provide a financial report also together with the narrative one.
So this presentation will explain the financial rules for EYF grants as of 2026. It will cover the new budgeting approach, the eligible expenditure, the reporting requirements and the major changes that were put in place with the reform.
Throughout this presentation, I will try and distinguish between what you need to provide when applying and what you will need to provide when reporting. This distinction is important because some costs are reimbursed against documents, while others use unit costs, lump sums or flat rates.
So yeah, before looking at individual budget lines, we will have a look at the key documents. You already heard about most of them now from my colleagues. So there are three main documents. They are all available on the website.
First, we have the EYF statutes that explain the foundation's mission and its main areas of work. It gives the overall legal and policy framework.
We have the operational regulations, which were updated in December last year. They describe the granting process, how applications are assessed and how decisions are made, and the general conditions attached to the grants.
Then the most important one, and you heard about it already several times, is the guide to EYF grants. It's probably the one you will use the most when preparing your application and report. It gives practical instructions, definitions, examples, and the requirements for each type of expenditure when we talk about budgets.
So for the financial part, budget and reporting, you will find the information on page 26 to 36. It's a living document. We update it on a regular basis. So I can only advise you to check the website regularly to see if there are new information in it.
Okay, so now that we know a little bit about the rules and where they come from, we can have a look at the expenditure and how it is organised in the application and the report.
So the financial part of the application is organised by type of expenditure. Each budget line belongs to a category such as travel, accommodation and meals, human resources, equipment and supplies, supplementary services, or indirect costs.
The reporting method is not identical for each category. Some costs require invoices, contracts, and proof of payments. Travel is reported using unit rates or lump sums. Indirect costs use a flat rate, and this is why it is essential to classify these costs correctly from the beginning.
A good budget line contains enough information for someone who does not know the work of the organisation to understand the calculation. For example, instead of writing only accommodation 6000 EUR, please write the number of people, the number of nights and the average cost per person per night.
The same figures should appear consistently throughout the application. If the activity descriptions says that there are 30 participants for four days, the accommodation, meals and travel lines should reflect this figure unless you explain the difference.
So let's also see the main changes that were introduced in the financial regulations since we started this reform.
So, first, co-funding has changed.
There is no longer a minimum co-funding threshold. This does not mean that funding sources can be left unclear. In your budget, you must indicate only the cost covered by the EYF grants and co-funding should be shown separately, if there is co-funding, of course. There will be a separate column in the budget form for that. It's of course not compulsory for ad hoc activities, but you can mention it.
Second, there is no threshold for staff cost. It used to be a maximum 10% of the awarded grant. Now staff expenditure can be included when it is necessary for the project, properly calculated and proportionate to the work carried out.
Third, participant and travel and team travel is now based on lump sums or unit rates at reporting stage. This reduces the need to report every individual ticket like it used to be in the past. But you still have to keep the documents in case we want to audit them. You will not have to provide them when reporting but we might audit you and then you will have to provide them.
Administrative costs used to be 7% of the awarded grant. Now it is replaced by indirect eligible costs, automatically calculated at 7% of the awarded grant. No supporting documents are required for this flat rate amount.
And then the EYF also introduced the Equal Access Fund and multiplier activities. The first one intends to enhance the accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities in EYF funded activities. The second one corresponds to what was sometimes called in the past micro grants or local activities.
Let's have a look at the major cost categories, beginning with travel. Travel includes the travel of participants and project team members, local travel directly connected to the event and visa related costs when relevant, probably not in your activities.
For participants and team travel, the applicant indicates an average cost per person, the estimated number of people travelling and the activity concerned. For example, 24 participants at an average cost of 320 EUR each. Local travel refers to transport during the activity, such as public transport between venues, a bus for a project visit or transport to an external meeting location. These costs should be budgeted at the project level estimate. At reporting stage, participants and team travel is covered according to the applicable unit rates that we will see on the next page.
This is an example of what it will look like in the new system, in the new platform. As you can see, we have the different categories, prep meeting, main event, follow-up, local transportation costs, and visa costs. You will have to put in the number of units, the average cost units, the unit of cost, and then it's calculated automatically.
It is very important to include a comment and describe how the calculation was made. This will give us more information on how your activity is organised. Then you have this new column, estimated amount of co-funding and comments on co-funding, which is of course not compulsory. If you have co-funding, you can mention it. If you don't, you do not mention it.
Now to understand how the reimbursement works, we will have the look at the EYF rates. So travel expenses are based on lump sums. It depends on travel distance and unit rates. The travel distance is calculated between the participants’ residence and the meeting place.
The relevant band is based on the one-way distance. For example, a participant lives 620 kilometres from the venue. The one-way distance determines the relevant band and the listed demand covers the return journey. So in this example, 620 kilometres, the standard amount is then 290 EUR. This is what you will have to report.
This standard demand is a contribution to the return journey. In other words, the unit rate is not calculated separately for the outward and the return trip. It's only one way. There is also an incentive for more environmentally friendly travel. The eco-friendly rate may be used when no plane, boat or personal car is used during the whole journey.
A car may be considered eco-friendly only when at least three participants travel together. So if in the trip there is only eco-friendly means of transportation, you can use the specific rate. If the trip includes train, bus and car travel, and there's only one participant, then it's the standard amount that you have to use.
And then the organisation should not assume that the unit rate will always equal the tickets price, it's a standard contribution determined by the distance band and travel mode, which means basically that you use this distance bands. So it can happen that the costs for the participants are higher or lower than what is possible from this table.
Then to report these travel costs, you will have to use this participant list. It's also valid for the team, so it's participant, team, expert, whoever will be reimbursed for the travel expenses. You will have to indicate the general information like name, address, e-mail address, age.
The most important parts are the information about the country and the town where the people leave from. You also have to specify at the top in the yellow part, the meeting venue. And then you have this distance calculator that will allow you to check which rate you can use and report in this participants list. This participants list must also be signed by all participants. You can include all participants, even the ones that you will not cover. You just have to tick yes or no in the corresponding field.
At reporting stage, this is the only document you have to provide. There is no need for the receipts, the tickets, the bus tickets, the taxi receipts or anything. And as I said, they must nevertheless be kept by the organisation because we might ask to see them if we decide to audit your organisation.
Next, accommodation and meals. This is another budgetary category. It includes accommodation and meals, coffee breaks for participants and project team members. It may cover the main activity or where relevant a prep meeting or a follow-up meeting. You can add costs for any of these phases.
At application stage, the calculation is based on the average cost per night multiplied by the number of people and nights. The same for the meals. You can of course use average cost when you don't know exactly how, what the cost will be.
But it must be a realistic amount.
Then here you can see how it will be filled in the application form, in the report form later. It's exactly the same way of proceeding as for the travel expenses. You add the unit, the number of units, the average costs, it's calculated automatically. We expect a comment explaining the calculation and that's it. And of course, if co-funded or not.
At reporting stage, you will have to provide all invoices and proofs of payment for this budgetary line. It's based on real costs and so we expect to receive documents.
So these are all the participant related costs. I don't know if there are already any questions at this stage.
BALTAG Olga 1:10:23
I'm trying to answer them in chat as they go, and then maybe at the end of your presentation, we take a general one with everybody. Yes, I'm trying to answer whenever there is something.
HORST Marilyn 1:10:25
Okay.
Thank you, Olga.
Then next budgetary line, human resources. There are two subcategories in this budgetary line. The first is salaries for staff employed by the grantee organisation who dedicate part of their working time to the project, meaning people who are paid on a regular basis with salary slips. And the 2nd is fees for trainers, external experts, facilitators, designers, consultants who are paid a fee and who provide invoices.
When applying, you have to identify those people and their roles and explain what they will do and show the number of days and rates used in the calculation.
For employed staff members, we suggest the calculation is based on the gross salary, monthly salary divided by the number of working days in the month,
and multiplied by the number of days dedicated to the project.
For the external experts, facilitators, speakers, or whoever, you should use the agreed or estimated daily fee multiplied by the number of working days. And remember that preparation, delivery, evaluation, and follow-up can also be included in this number of days.
So again, a screenshot of the online system, the platform, how it will look like. Always the same way of calculating unit, number of units and average cost. And of course, the description, which is, as I said, important.
Just to come back to what we are supposed to provide for human resources. For staff costs, then as I said, salary slips that indicate the gross salary and any relevant document providing the additional charges paid by the employer as well as proof of payment. For external service providers, it's a copy of the contract, the deliverables, when relevant, invoices and proofs of payment.
So the next category is equipment and supplies. It includes office supplies, materials, equipment rental needed for the project. It can include interpretation equipment, technical equipment or materials used in workshops.
What is new also here that we didn't have in the past is that you can now also include purchase of low value items up to 300 EUR. These low value items are like an example, chargers, laser pointers, small microphones, external batteries, USB keys. So this is up to 300 EUR per grand maximum.
Again, an example of a screenshot of how it needs to be presented in the budget tab in the application form. It's exactly the same as the other budgetary lines.
Then next, supplementary expenditure and services.
This is to include meeting room rental, technical projections of project outputs, the ones that Samir also mentioned, like publications, podcasts, booklets, anything like that, graphic design and printing, visibility and communication activities, and
the multiplier activities. Communication activities also include ads on social networks of course. For meeting rooms, you should indicate the number of rooms, the duration and estimated rental cost. Of course, if it's already included in the package for accommodation, you do not have to budget it again.
For the project outputs, the application should explain what will be produced. The financial line should then show the technical services required, such as layout, graphic design, editing or printing. Visibility and communication, as I said, can include targeted social media promotion, accessible design, video editing or dissemination materials.
Multiplier activities are specific from a supplementary service, so it's considered separately in this presentation.
So multiplier activities is what we used to call micro grants or funds given to participants or member organisations to implement local activities after a main event.
At application stage, you should state whether you plan multiplier activities, how many you expect, the average cost and the objectives. The project description should explain what type of activity will take place and what results it should achieve. At reporting stage, reimbursement is based on the contract between the grantee organisation and the multiplier.
The minimum supporting evidence includes the contract, a proof of payment of this contract, and proof that the activity was delivered. This proof should include signed participants list, photos, a short report describing what was done, and the results achieved. In the past, you had to provide all little ticket bus
receipt from a shop, fee contracts and everything. Now, it's only this grant agreement signed between the organisation and the multiplier and the proof of payment and all these documents supporting the narrative part of the multiplier activity.
You can also see in the guide on Appendix 2 an example of a list of things that should be included in this agreement that you sign with the local partners. It's informative, but it gives an overview of what we expect to see. Then, of course, if you have your own contract forms, templates, it's also fine with us as long as the essential information is included.
So in the budget, this is where you will include your supplementary expenditure, so rental of rooms, technical production, multiplier activities and visibility and communication actions.
Next, the indirect eligible costs I already mentioned earlier. This is a category in which you include any costs that is not already included in another budgetary line. It can be a share of the office costs, accounting support, general administrative overheads.
It used to be called administrative costs up until 2025. This was for office rent, heating, electricity and water invoices. Now you can put these under this indirect eligible costs. The good news is that we don't ask for any documents and this amount is calculated automatically as 7% of the grant.
So, automatic calculation, you should not touch this field in the application form, and then no documents to be provided at reporting stage, which is, I think, quite nice.
Then co-funding, if there is co-funding, at the end of the budget form, there is a co-funding self-declaration. As you see, it's optional, but here you can indicate what other sources of funding you have for your project. It can be monetary,
meaning a grant from another organisation or founder, but it can also be in-kind contributions or volunteer time recognition, anything, but it's of course not compulsory.
Then just a quick note about double funding. Of course, structural support and project support may both contribute to an organisation's work, but the same expenditure cannot be charged twice. For example, if a staff salary is already fully covered by a structural grant, the same salary days cannot also be claimed as a project grant costs. So the same costs cannot be paid, covered by two different sources if you have to split.
Well, just a quick note about procurement. You must follow the relevant national legislation, of course. This is the starting point. EYF rules do not replace your national procurement, tax, labour or accounting obligations. You can organise, you should seek the best deal and best value for money always.
And depending on the amount of national rules, this may involve a competitive call requesting at least three offers or another appropriate market comparison procedure. We do not ask for these documents. We only want to see in the report the documents from the chosen service provider. We do not need to see the whole call and all applications.
Finally, an important part, probably for most of you, the payments. How are the payments made for EYF grants? So the first instalment is 80% of the grant awarded. It will be paid once the grant agreement is signed by both sides, both parties. And if the project starts more than 10 weeks after the approval, it would only be paid 10 weeks before it starts. The remaining 20% is paid after the EYF receives and approves the final project reports, meaning the narrative and the financial. They must be complete, and the payment is only paid once everything is okay and validated on our side. There is no payment of this second instalment to cover costs that you could not pay.
You will have to provide all documents when reporting. And you have two months after the end date of your activity to provide your report. This is a general rule that we always had and that is still valid.
And the reporting, of course, will be done in the new financial, in the new system, in the new platform. You will not have to send documents by e-mail, not documents by post, and everything will take place in the new platform.
And that's it for my small presentation. I did that as quickly as I could. So these are all the ways you can reach us. You have the website, you have the new granting system, which is not live for the moment. You can contact us at EYF mailbox. We have some social media. And of course, as was already mentioned, we have the open desks every Wednesday from 14h to 16h CET. When you can, pop in, ask your questions and go. Thank you. So if there are any questions, it's the right moment now.
BALTAG Olga 1:21:34
Marilyn, I just want to, under your supervision, I provided an answer, but I want to make sure that I did correctly. There is someone who is asking about the participants list. They would like to do a workshop for 10 schools. Each school could provide 30 students. Should they put them on this list or is it enough if they put the facilitators team and they wish to provide a training for the future young facilitators? So I replied saying that if you want to charge travel costs, everybody needs to be on the list. If you don't charge travel costs, then you can use a simple participant list without the address but still all the participants need to sign.
I see the person responsible for finances and the person responsible for the reporting both nodding. So yes.
HORST Marilyn 1:22:20
Correct. Well done, Olga. Correct.
HORST Marilyn 1:22:29
All good, all good.
So then I see we have other questions from the representative of HDRI as a start.
Representative of HDRI 1:22:37
Yeah, thank you so much. Actually, the finance part is really like a complicated area in the sense of the project writing. I have actually three questions, which is really important. First is the multiplier activity. So since the EYF guides like multiplier activity, the rules seems to describe the contracting and external multiplier. I want to know does internally run for example peer sessions by participant who are already part of the grant activities need a separate multiplier contract or can this be treated as a normal project activity instead.
HORST Marilyn 1:23:20
Maybe colleagues are in charge of the narrative part, you are better to answer this question because it's not really financially related.
BALTAG Olga 1:23:27
So I think that the aspect of the finance is mainly related to are you giving your participants money to do something or not? If you're not giving them money, then this is part of the follow-up multiplication of your project in the philosophical sense, you know, so that they learn something and then they go and they do something. If, however, there is some sort of monetary exchange, then Marilyn comes in and...
HORST Marilyn 1:24:01
And you will need to sign a contract and provide a proof of payment and then all the other proofs that the activity took place, list of participants, photos, narrative reports summarizing what happened and so on. This is also, I see that you already read the guide, so you probably know a bit what it's about.
Representative of HDRI 1:24:05
Yeah, thank you so much. And also for the Equal Access Fund, also the guide says that the deadlines are kind of like announced through the year. Is there, for example, a specific window tied to this calls deadline or is it kind of requested separately after the grant is awarded?
BALTAG Olga 1:24:40
It is requested separately after the grant is awarded because it is only open for implementing projects. So once projects are awarded the grant at given deadlines, because we are having rolling deadlines, then we launch an expression of interest for the Equal Access Fund within the grantees that have grants with us.
And then whoever wishes to apply for this Equal Access Fund, then they apply and then they get a 10% top-up of their grant.
Georges - HDRI 1:25:12
But is it is it like fully yes 10% or is it again 80% and 20%?
BALTAG Olga 1:25:20
It is 10%. So for example, in this case, for this call, we have the 8,000 EUR maximum amount of grants. So if you would request an equal access fund, you would get maximum of 800 EUR and you would get the 800 EUR when the equal access fund is awarded.
Representative of HDRI 1:25:30
Perfect. And my last question is about the indirect cost. So is the 7% indirect cost, like a calculation, always exactly 7% of the awarded direct cost, even if some, for example, even if some direct cost lines are greater reduced during implementation or is the amount locked at the application stage?
HORST Marilyn 1:26:06
It is calculated based on the final cost. It is 7% of the application, of the cost you put in the application. And then when reporting, it is 7%, it is a moving figure if this is your question. It is not the amount that will be calculated when applying. It's the amount, the final amount will be calculated when reporting based on the cost you report.
Representative of HDRI 1:26:18
Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much.
HORST Marilyn 1:26:31
You're welcome.
HECO Samir 1:26:32
And maybe we can have one more question
Participant 6 1:26:38
Yeah, thank you so much. I have two questions. First one is the 8000 EUR is just the grant you provide, yeah? I can have as much co-funding as I want. And the second one, maybe this was mentioned and I don't remember, but for the human resources, should we have a document with the signature saying this is how many days I worked, something like that for the reporting?
HORST Marilyn 1:27:12
For the reporting, what we request is the salary sheets, the proofs of payment. You mean a time sheet maybe? Because you will have to calculate based on the number of days dedicated to the project within a month. It could be useful, yes. It's not compulsory. It's not among the documents we request, but it is helpful to see how you calculate it. And of course, you have the description field where you can explain that out of 22 days, working days in the month, this person dedicated 15 days to the project and this corresponds to this amount. You put the daily rate, in fact, in this case, as the unit rate and then you explain in the description how it was calculated. But if you have time sheets, you can of course also upload them, although not compulsory.
Participant 6 1:27:53
Okay, thank you so much.
HECO Samir 1:28:06
Okay, so thank you everybody. I see we are on time, but if you could stay maybe for two minutes more, I would just like to give some more tips about this project.
So, how to apply? As said earlier, the online system will be available end of July, beginning of August. You have the Word templates and Excel templates to prepare already the application. And once the system is online, you can just copy paste in the online tool.
The deadline for the application is 1 September, 23h59 Central European Summer Time.
How you will apply, you have to apply with a narrative part, but also the estimated budget.
We would really advise you to read the call several times.
We have mentioned several times the guide, which is really a crucial tool where you can find information. And of course, we would advise you to get more familiar with the Council of Europe resources regarding the implementation of your project.
Another tips is to focus on maybe one of the objectives. You don't need to reply to all specific objectives of the call.
Prepare your proposal with young people, of course.
And of course, really try to use as much as possible the resources of the youth sector.
And yes, so this is it. Thank you all for your time. We really hope the meeting was helpful. There will be another meeting on the same subject on the 11th of August. So if you would have some more information, then please join us again.
Thank you very much, and I hope the meeting was helpful.
HECO Samir arrêt de la transcription